Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussion of death.

Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.

1. What is your impression of the speaker of this poem? What kind of person do you think they are?

2. Did you understand everything you read on the first read? Did you encounter any new language you didn’t know before?

3. How does this poem compare to others with prominent animal symbolism/imagery—e.g., William Blake’s “The Lamb,” Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Black Cat,” or Wallace Steven’s “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”?

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

1. Have you read other poems by Edgar Allan Poe, like “The Haunted Palace” or “Annabel Lee”? How does this one compare? Why do you think “The Raven” became culturally canonized above all his other poems?

2. Could you relate to the speaker’s experience with grief? Why or why not?

3. The speaker interprets the raven’s repeated phrase, “Nevermore,” in a variety of ways. Which interpretation spoke most to you? What do you think